Hollywood Studios Quietly Ban Employees From Betting on Casting and Release Dates in Prediction Markets
Studios and production companies in Hollywood have been quietly issuing new guidelines warning employees not to engage in prediction market betting, The Hollywood Reporter reported on November 5. The warnings prohibit employees from placing bets on news events such as studio earnings, casting decisions and even release dates, and passing information to friends and family for them to place bets is likewise forbidden. At least one company has set up a hotline where staffers can anonymously report colleagues suspected of placing bets.
The new rules are an expansion of longstanding policies barring insider trading in the stock market: casting choices, release schedules and earnings figures are known to a small circle of employees well before any announcement, and prediction markets have turned that access into a betting opportunity. PMC, The Hollywood Reporter's parent company, has also updated its employee handbook in recent weeks to forbid betting on award nominations, casting decisions, production timelines and release dates.
As a precedent, the report cited a case disclosed by Kalshi in February: a video editor working for creator MrBeast's company used confidential information to place bets on the creator's content, making $5,000; the employee was fired and hit with a $20,000 penalty. Experts cited in the report, including Columbia Law professor Joshua Mitts, say there is almost no way to completely stop the practice.
The report also noted that the Pentagon has banned personnel from using nonpublic information to bet, in a memo naming Polymarket and Kalshi, while Kalshi says it is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and has policies against insiders profiting from unique knowledge.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：好莱坞标志。Thomas Wolf 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Hollywood Sign. Photo by Thomas Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
